Agree with you Otepoti. I wish Freddie and Freddie’s little son all the very best and I am really glad they both have the baby’s grandparents around/family support.
I’m still really shocked though at the Guardian’s coverage of this film and of Freddie as the documentary subject. The Guardian’s complete abandonment of any sense of, you know, actual journalism in this article. As if only ‘some feminists’ and the ‘alt-right’ believe in physical reality? Or only they believe in the shitness of gender roles?
Where is the journalistic exploration of the political lines being spoken by Freddie? Where is the gentle probing asking Freddie to unpack these glib statements that he is making, just a little bit more?
And I would want to ask if Freddie feels that adherence to this ideology is serving Freddie’s own best interests and is making him happy? or indeed the interests of Freddie as a parent to Freddie’s little son- is this political outlook likely to make either of them happy? Given that this ideology was apparently so in conflict for Freddie when Freddie had the perfectly mundane human urge to reproduce?
Eg Freddie talking about getting pregnant and being pregnant: It took me so long to feel OK about wanting kids, because there’s a stigma attached to it,” he says. “It took me a long time to separate identity from biology. I’m just using my hardware to do a thing. It’s pragmatic.”
Why did Freddie need to feel he’s just using ‘his hardware’ (eggs, uterus, female body) to ‘just do a thing’? What is so wrong with the ‘thing’ that it can’t even be named? I notice that Freddie doesn’t say ‘pregnant’, he says ‘carry’ all the time. Why so? In what way is he not ‘pregnant’ like anyone else? What is he, if he is just ‘carrying’? What does that mean for transmen or for women?
And couldn't the journalist have gently asked about identity- about the individualistic aspects of identity and what relationship an individualised identity claim, has to being a member of a group or the group identity? Like with the describing Freddie as being a ‘gay, transgender man’? (in the trailer blurb: www.theguardian.com/film/video/2019/apr/02/seahorse-exclusive-trailer-for-new-documentary-about-the-dad-who-gave-birth-video)
How do gay men feel about that description? Or women? Or lesbians?
What about the obvious parallel to other birthing women when Freddie talks about giving birth? What in any of this makes Freddie ‘a man’? (except his beard which he seems to feel is a big part of it)?
Would journalists treat anyone else who flatly denies biological reality with such enormous, patronising, irresponsible, kid gloves?
And why didn’t the Guardian actually explore what kind of person is Freddie? Like what else does Freddie have going on in Freddie’s life apart from Freddie’s views on gender?
Oh hang on- Money. I presume the Guardian must have a financial interest in this film because they helped to make it.
So Hattenstone’s article is really just a promo for the Guardian’s own new film.
But is this really newspaper journalism? To completely abandon any sense of objectivity once there is money to be made? To demonise most people (whoops, sorry: ‘some feminists and the alt-right’
) to give a bit of grit to an otherwise very self-absorbed, but clearly rather vulnerable person’s story?
Honestly the Guardian’s tone is so patronising and tokenistic. Don’t trans people like Freddie ever feel really insulted when they are (apparently) ‘lauded’ in such an othering, self-congratulatory way? (the Guardian patting itself on the back for being so benevolently ‘inclusive’?) And patting Freddie on the head all the while.. and while taking full advantage of the access Freddie apparently gave over 3 years...
Where are the journalistic ethics here?
The Guardian coverage is exactly like the Stepmother/Godmother character in the BBC 3 show Fleabag, introducing people at her wedding. This outrageously narcissistic person doesn’t have any real relationships. She says: ‘Oh here’s my lesbian friend, here’s my bisexual Syrian refugee friend, here’s my deaf friend..’ or whatever. It’s painful to watch. They are not truly friends.
The stepmother/godmother doesn’t know them as people or individuals or friends, they are just a collection of fashionable, exotic (to her) labels in human form demonstrating how interesting, worldly and tolerant she is. None of these people are individualised beyond those small facets of who they are.
Collecting woke points by treating living people as only representatives of something, is not treating people as people- human people are never one-dimensional. And so many people suffer for the labels that are put on them it’s actually really decadent and horrible to be colluding in all that.
Anyway- i’m sure we’re all looking forward to the next films that the Guardian will make, following other Guardian staffers’ personal lives and struggles.
I wonder if the Guardian have any women on their payroll who were let down by a partner at the trying to conceive stage or in early pregnancy, and then they decided to go it alone with a lot of support from their family who live very close nearby to them..? How supportive has the Guardian been to them? Have they found it easy or hard combining work at the Guardian with motherhood with no partner support?